


last two.

by waterpllar



Category: Naruto
Genre: BAMF Haruno Sakura, Haruno Sakura-centric, Humor, Multi, References to Depression, Training, strictly platonic relations, what if kakashi wasn't shitty teacher au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-14 08:20:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29914059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterpllar/pseuds/waterpllar
Summary: Naruto is off with the Toad Sannin, no doubt getting better without having to pulverize his bones because he’s jinchuuriki and he’sNaruto. Sasuke is being trained by Orochimaru, probably taking out all his angst on the creepy snake guy. Sakura begged Tsunade to take her, and despite her immediate regret and wounds to show for it, is still able to keep up. The three sannin are split between them, each training them for whatever goals they have.Of the original Team Seven, she and Kakashi are the only ones left in Konoha, and he’s already kind of the exception because he never takes breaks between missions.She hasn’t spoken to him in two months.She should probably get on that. And try to find a reason to keep living. Who knows, maybe they’ll coincide.(how sakura spends her three years with team 7 disbanded, while kakashi tries to make up for his shortcomings in his own strange way.)
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Hatake Kakashi, Haruno Sakura & Tsunade
Comments: 9
Kudos: 85





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> sakura is my favorite character out of all naruto the cast so far and i really wanted to see actual development for her like the other three got so. here's this. ooc probably but idgaf anymore. comment if you wanna see more!

Sakura needs to sit down and reassess her life’s decisions. 

She’s fourteen. Turning fifteen in nine weeks. She spends her mornings in a hospital, tending to demanding patients and squalling children. Her afternoons are taken up by training with Tsunade, a blur of pain and endless lectures and the _crack snap pop_ of bones breaking. Her nights are spent lying in her shitty, rundown apartment, trying to ignore the phantom pains long enough to sleep. 

This is isn’t the life she wanted. 

She signed up to the Academy because Ino was and Ino was the pinnacle of what a girl should be, at the young age she was. She passed all the tests because Ino was now her rival, and Sasuke might see, but nothing could have prepared her for this. 

Except she did sign up for Tsunade’s training, and she never asks to stop, even when blood is a constant taste in the roof of her mouth. Her efforts are showing, evident in the instant it takes to heal minor injuries and the first time she smashed a boulder into dust with a punch, but even that might not be worth it. 

Naruto is off with the Toad Sannin, no doubt getting better without having to pulverize his bones because he’s jinchuuriki and he’s _Naruto_. 

Of the original Team Seven, she and Kakashi are the only ones left in Konoha, and he’s already kind of the exception because he never takes breaks between missions. 

She hasn’t spoken to him in two months. 

She should probably get on that. And try to find a reason to keep living. Who knows, maybe they’ll coincide.

x

It’s not a surprise to see that her first glimpse of him in a long while is in the very hospital where she was just finishing up. 

Mildly annoying because she is tired and sore and she’s fairly sure that Kakashi, like any other ex ANBU jounin, isn’t a good patient, but she’ll come anyways. They were supposed to be friends. 

Sakura taps the nurse on the arm, peeking over his shoulder to spy Kakashi’s medical chart. 

“I can take over,” she says, and the nurse accepts, because of course no sane person wants to treat the Copy-nin. 

Kakashi has his eye closed but she knows that he’s alert when his chakra spikes at her approach. 

She leans over his still face. “Kakashi. Open your eyes.”

He doesn’t, opening his mouth instead to drawl, “Sakura. What pleasure do I owe you?”

“Nothing. You’re at the hospital for-” she checks the chart again. “A stab wound, and I’m here to treat you.”

“I could have dealt with it at home,” Kakashi grumbles, and yeah, that’s the guy she knows. “I cleaned it and everything.”

Sakura snorts. “Wrong. It could have hit a nerve. Let me see.”

She bats his hands away from the darkening spot on his pants, pressing her own on top with a slight nudge of diagnostic jutsu. It’s a surprisingly clean stab for an enemy-made wound, so she just seals it up from the inside out, chakra spreading through his system as she fixes and rights the broken blood vessels along the way. 

And- it’s a little worrying how easy it is to push her own chakra into his. There’s way too little resistance for an adult jounin, especially as competent as he is. 

“Kakashi,”she says, eyebrows knitting together. “How large are your chakra reserves usually?”

“Huh?” he looks at her slowly. “Normal? I’m not sure.”

She takes his wrist (too thin) and sends another pulse through his body, only to draw back with a huff.

“Hmm.”

“Hmm what?” he stares. 

“Your levels aren’t right. The chakra in your body is spread too thin, when it should be circulating equally.”

“Ah. That probably has something to do with this,” he says, pushing up his hitai-ate an inch. The sharingan stares back at her. 

Her frown deepens. “That sharingan is seriously going to kill you, Kakashi. It takes almost half your chakra constantly to sustain your vision, and that’s not even mentioning mangekyou.”

“I know that,” he sighs. “You’re not the first medic-nin to come up with that diagnosis.”

Sakura watches him tug the hitai-ate back down. “I can’t ask you to have it removed, because almost all your styles depend on the sharingan, but you should know how damaging it is to your body. You’re too dependent on your right eye from having the other covered up, and you’re going to need glasses sooner or later.”

“A monocle, then?” he huffs good naturedly. 

“Goggles, more like,” she scoffs, and notices his easygoing act drop just a fraction.

“Anyways,” Sakura says awkwardly after the sudden change in atmosphere, “you should go get dinner with me, after you’re cleared. I can tell you’re underweight.”

“I don’t think it’d be good practice to go to a bar with my former student, but alright-”

“Idiot!” her cheeks light on fire, warming at the implications. “That’s so gross! We’re going as- as friends.”

“Friends?” he blinks. 

“Yeah, friends. We used to be a team, remember?”

Not that Kakashi ever taught her anything, but the point still stands. She got over her bitterness from being ignored the first time Tsunade slammed a fist into her gut and shattered two ribs.

“Uh. Sure.” He looks uncertain, but that’s fine because Sakura is not losing contact to another member of Team 7. Once was enough, and she hasn’t Naruto in a year and a half. 

“I’ll meet you outside the hospital. My shift was supposed to have been done twenty minutes ago.”

She scribbles out a hasty report on Kakashi’s injury, stripping off her gloves as she strides out the room before he can say anything. 

x

They end up going to the bar anyways, as that’s apparently the only restaurant Kakashi knows besides Ichiraku and Sakura doesn’t want to eat ramen without Naruto. 

She orders two dishes when Kakashi only gets an appetiser because he needs to eat more. And she’s a medic, technically. 

He does stop her when she asks for a drink and gets alcohol, despite her status as an adult since she was twelve. She decides not to tell him about the times she drank from Tsunade’s bottle after training. 

They don’t really talk but that’s fine, she’s starving after skipping lunch in favor for some more training in between. The silence isn’t uncomfortable, so she eats and occasionally pushes pieces of food to Kakashi’s plate as well. It’s very different from any of the other meals she’s shared with Ino or Shikamaru or Choji. 

It only takes him two glasses of something smelling dark to start talking. 

“Listen, Sakura,” he starts, setting down his chopsticks. “I’ve been meaning to say this, but I was too busy, up until now.”

She looks up from her plate, tilting her head. What’s this about? Does he have some sort of information on Sasuke? Or maybe a bad update on Naruto’s travels with the Toad Sannin? 

Kakashi hooks a finger on the edge of his jounin vest, saying, “I was wrong, in leaving you, back when you were genin. I should have been- I was a shitty teacher. To you especially.”

Her heart leaps, relief flooding in her head before anger replaces it. Why is he bringing this up now? Two whole years after Sasuke left? Just to get the guilt off his chest? It’s what she wants, what she’s been waiting for since Sasuke left and she started training until blood became a permanent taste in her mouth, but it’s still not enough. 

“It’s whatever,” she says stiffly. “I know Naruto and Sasuke were more important.”

“It’s not like that, I-”

“Not like what. Not like what, Kakashi?” she snorts, gripping her spoon until it groans under her hand. Right. She has to take care not to break stuff, now.

“I didn’t prioritize you less than the others.” the edges of his mask tighten, a sign he’s grimacing, probably.

“I said it’s okay. Sasuke’s the last Uchiha and Naruto is the jinchuuriki, and I’m just the buffer between them to keep the team running smoothly. Right?”

Kakashi falls silent at that, back straight. 

“Except I failed. Sasuke left and all I did was cry and then the Toad Sannin came and took Naruto, and I’m only an apprentice because the Hokage took pity on the weak civilian girl stuck between soon-to-be legends.” 

“I’m sorry,” he says, and she can’t stand the pitiful look on his face, even if half of it is covered.

“Forget it,” Sakura sighs. “I didn’t come here to dump my own weakness on you. I don’t need you as a teacher anymore.”

“I’ll train you,” Kakashi says quickly, eye widening like he hadn’t meant to say that. 

“What? Did you not just hear me?” she scowls. 

“I mean it,” he exhales. “I really do regret not- not helping you. And it’s just you and me, now.”

She eyes him, searching for any sign of a lie, but he only looks slightly uncomfortable

“Sure. I can’t complain if you’re willing to help me get stronger,” she shrugs. “But first, you have to come to my afternoon to see Tsunade and I spar.”

If you could even call it a spar. She shudders to think about how many bones will be broken, and how many she’ll have to heal herself.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sakura gets some 'tough' love from Tsunade during training, while Kakashi watches (and has to accept how bad of a teacher he was).

Surprisingly, he isn’t late. 

Well. There’s a lot of things she’s finding surprising about Kakashi, these days. She waves him over, signing her name off the form as she rubs at a dried spot of blood on her forearm. 

“Good afternoon,” he says, just as mild and even tempered as ever. 

Sakura nods her greeting, stretching out the kinks in her neck. Their normal training ground is still split up and hasn’t been fixed yet by the staff, so Tsunade had told her to come by to the forest grounds. Environmental practice, maybe.

“You should know by now, but the training I do with Tsunade isn’t exactly practical,” she tells him. “So don’t try to step in or anything.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he hums. 

It takes a few more minutes to pick her way through the foliage where Tsunade is waiting, and by the time Sakura has finished brushing the leaves off her pants, her teacher has her arms crossed. 

“Sakura,” Tsunade calls, irritated. “What took you so long?”

“Sorry, shishou,” she says apologetically. “Kakashi wanted to come, too.”

“Whatever,” she huffs. “Get down here. I want you to last five minutes with no hits, and land your own in fifteen.”

Yikes. Seems she’s in the punishing sort of mood. Sakura slides down, already stretching her joints. This match depends on agility, something she doesn’t exactly have in spades. There’s no way in hell she can block one of Tsunade’s punches full force, so the next best thing is redirecting them. 

It’s too bad she doesn’t have a kekkai genkai like Sasuke, she laments. Dodging would be so much easier if she had the sharingan to calculate the trajectory. 

As she touches her toes and flexes every muscle in her body manually, she keeps her guard up, listening for any sudden movements. One of Tsunade’s favourite movements, she’s found, is to strike when the target is most vulnerable. In this case, it’s when she’s still not warmed up. 

The ground trembles slightly under her feet, and Sakura knows she’s right when she looks up and twists to the side just quick enough to avoid Tsunade’s lunge. 

Unfortunately, her master isn’t so lenient as to let her catch her balance before coming again. The next punch grazes Sakura’s hair when she bends backward to dodge, and it takes all of her trained instincts from the past year and a half to narrowly slip past the next two. 

There’s not really a reason to try and hit back right now, since her assignment was to avoid getting hit and she absolutely can’t do that while looking for an opening in Tsunade’s flawless guard. All her chakra and reflexes are working towards avoiding the continuing blows. 

Sakura already knows, if she takes one direct hit, the fight is over. Tsunade may be holding back her speed to let her adjust to the steady increase, but even a third of her power is enough to shatter her ribcage entirely. She knows that from experience. 

At least Tsunade let her take the next day off from hands on practice.

“Stop bringing your hands out for balance,” her master shouts in the middle of a kick. “It makes you a larger target and easier to get off guard.”

Sakura immediately brings her arms back to her front, because when Tsunade says something, one is expected to obey. And said arms will probably get snapped if she doesn’t fix the error. 

After a minute of regaining her bearings, she slips into her mission mindset. She can’t think about anything but the next punch and jab flying her way. She ducks and distracts and pretends to go one way while going the other. Anything she can use as an advantage against her opponent, which isn’t much, but it’s enough for her to last until Tsunade grabs her arm mid jump. 

“Five minutes are up,” she says, and releases her arm at the same time her other goes for an uppercut.

Sakura jerks her head back to avoid the hit, grimacing. Just dodging Tsunade is hard enough; managing even one strike back is near impossible even on her best days. 

Still, it’s her assignment for the day, and Tsunade won’t let her leave until she vomits up blood, or succeeds. 

Sakura twists downwards and grabs a handful of debris to throw in Tsunade’s face, because she’ll take any advantage she can. Unsurprisingly, her master doesn’t even flinch, using a barrier jutsu before the first pebble even reaches her. It still works as a semi effective distraction, though, because it provides Sakura with ample time to recollect her thoughts. 

All her instructors had pegged her as a genjutsu specialist in the Academy, which was basically code for having good chakra control but being mediocre at taijutsu without a kekkai genkai. 

It was only after she started studying under Tsunade, that she really learned what it meant to cast genjutsu. Mainly, just how fucking difficult it is to cast a half useful one, especially in any state other than mediation. And Sakura is far from being in a meditative, calm state. She doubts that any of Tsunade’s opponents ever had the luxury of being given a reprieve. 

Still, that’s what she’s training for. Kurenai, despite her responsibilities as a jounin-leader, had agreed to train Sakura on days she was free. Her genjutsu is based around visual surroundings, using nature to her advantage, but the basics are simpler than developing a full based technique. 

She’s not well-versed enough to be able to cast a visual genjutsu on Tsunade, all while avoiding her destructive limbs. Her master is too practiced in spotting illusions, and the ones that Sakura poorly cast during their spars are almost immediately found. 

Her abilities are unfortunately limited in battle, but there’s one thing she hasn’t tried with Tsunade yet. 

Auditory genjutsu, as it turns out, is particularly effective against combat types who rely on their instincts. Especially the ones with monstrous strength and inhuman senses. 

The only problem is, Tsunade’s senses are unfairly sharp, and if she notices more than twice that a sound just out of sight occurs when Sakura is the other way, the gamble is lost. And unfortunately, the only way the genjutsu has even half a chance of working, is for her to become predictable first. 

She’ll trigger genjutsu at one spot, then move to the location just in time for Tsunade’s blow. A perfectly sound strategy on paper, with larger risks but a high payoff. It’s the best and only idea she has at the moment, but she knows if she gets hit, she’ll go down, and keeping up genjutsu while having your ribs smashed into your torso isn’t the easiest feat. 

Doubly difficult, but Sakura’s always had good chakra control, and a pain tolerance to rival some ANBU. 

She can handle two, maybe three full on hits before Tsunade starts causing permanent damage. She’ll have to make those count. 

She ducks and redirects her way through the already cracked yard, each punch jarring the bones in her arms without even direct contact. At least she isn’t out of breath yet, stamina beaten into her with endless sprints and spars lasting hours. 

Slowly, without alerting Tsunade, she starts the hand seals for her genjutsu technique. Difficult to time. Difficult to maintain the chakra in between without them being the rapid seals she is so used to. But she’s not good enough to perform any jutsu without them, and she can’t afford to get caught. 

In the thirty seconds it takes her to successfully cycle through the seals, Tsunade has batted away all of Sakura’s own, admittedly half-hearted punches and kicks. No use in faking fatigue to the greatest medic-nin in the world, but this is one of the longest time she’s lasted unharmed. 

Absolutely no suspicion flares in Tsunade’s gaze when Sakura leaps out to her marked crack in the dirt, simultaneously releasing her genjutsu. 

Her fist smashes into Sakura’s gut, and she immediately regrets her plan. Agony bolts through her entire body, even with Tsunade pulling her punch at the last second to avoid absolutely destroying her internal organs. A strangled gasp escapes without her noticing. 

It’s nothing she hasn’t felt before, but that doesn’t make it any better. Her pain receptors, as it turns out, are working just as well as they were the first time she got hit by Tsunade. 

Something hot and metal floods her mouth, and she spits it out on the ground. Dimly, she thanks her past self for skipping breakfast in favor of coming in for another shift at the hospital. Slipping in vomit is viscerally unpleasant, and something she never wants to experience again. 

Tsunade’s stern face swims into view in her blurring vision. 

“I’ll give you fifteen seconds, Sakura. Put yourself back together to your best ability.”

And yeah, of course she’s not given a minute to rest. Enemy nin don’t let you take a breather in the middle of a battle, so neither will Tsunade. Reasonable and a hard lesson to teach, but that doesn’t mean it’s one Sakura welcomes. 

By some miracle, her genjutsu is still holding up, but only barely. Muscle memory already has her hands glowing green and pressed to the damage done to her stomach, but her concentration is split between reweaving the genjutsu and healing. Maybe Sakura should have practiced this earlier, but no sane person would ever subject themself to one of Tsunade’s punches, or even an imitation. 

In ten seconds she is back on her feet. By the time Tsunade draws her feet back into a stance, the severe damage is repaired. No more risk of internal bleeding, but it hurts like hell every time she draws breath. Imperfect, and she’ll likely have to have it professionally treated, but the makeshift rigging in her insides is keeping her from spitting up blood, and that’s all she needs. 

Pain doesn’t sharpen one’s senses, like all the action books and movies say. It muddles the brain and all present thoughts, messing up the logical part of her brain. She has no more room for anything but the genjutsu hanging heavy in the area, and keeping herself from getting killed by Tsunade. 

Each movement is more instinct than conscious decision, her head spinning as she dodges a kick she can barely see. 

She sends a voice that sounds like her own to gasp in the genjutsu, and when Tsunade’s head whips around, Sakura shunshins to the spot before Tsunade can finish registering where the noise came from, and blocks the kick with her arm. 

Maybe it was luck that Tsunade struck only her arm with the brute force. Sakura doesn’t need her left arm to land a blow. 

This time, she doesn’t wait for Tsunade to wait with her arms crossed for her to heal her broken arm, only sending a pulse of chakra to help keep it immobile when she tugs on the genjutsu. Like the past two times, her master’s head whips to the sound, hand already reaching. 

Sakura isn’t there this time. She has practically no chakra left for another shunshin, but she’s still fast. It only takes her a moment to come up behind Tsunade with her good arm raised for a punch. 

She’s so close she can smell the alcohol on Tsunade’s robes, grazes her white blonde hair, when the woman whirls and knocks her fist down. 

Surprise curls in her gut. 

It should have been foolproof. Tsunade had already determined subconsciously that delayed placements were expected. Sakura doesn’t know how she saw through the genjutsu. If that didn’t work, nothing will, but-

There is no realization in Tsunade’s eyes. The block was just from pure instinct, honed from decades of experience and practice. 

This can still work, Sakura realizes, and she darts away, setting another layer of hasty genjutsu, warping the trees around them. Her master will definitely notice it, but she might just see it as a last ditch attempt to confuse her opponent, not recognizing the auditory genjutsu underneath. 

Sakura prays it will work. 

A scream sounds behind Tsunade’s shoulder, shouting in terror for her shishou. 

She only starts to turn, startled by Sakura’s own voice when the girl is in front of her, but Sakura is already moving. Grabs her wrist and twists her body with a move that makes her ribs protest, but it pays off, because her foot has already connected.

Sakura drops the genjutsu immediately, and lets go off Tsunade a moment later, slumping to the ground. 

“Tsunade-sama?” she says weakly from her position on the cracked dirt. 

Tsunade regards her with a strange look in her eye, and Sakura thinks she’s done something wrong, that maybe she didn’t try hard enough, before- 

“Good job,” she grumbles, and Sakura’s heart leaps. 

It is the first time she’s ever landed a blow on Tsunade. Her arm is useless, and her ribs will no doubt leave her gritting her teeth after the adrenaline wears off, but she can’t keep the smile off her face. 

Tsunade is proud of her. 

She isn’t weak. 

She isn’t useless. 

x

To say that Kakashi is surprised, is an understatement. 

Haruno Sakura is civilian born. No clan heritage or kekkai genkai. Nobody to teach her any of the basics that clan children are born hearing. She is, by all means, unremarkable. He’d written her off as a career chuunin, if she even made it that far during their introductions.

Kakashi watches her hold her own against the greatest medic-nin in the world after just a year and a half of training, and he thinks he is the stupidest fool to ever be born. 

Sakura fights like Tsunade, all fast movements and heavy hitting blows, but she’s just a little different. Her feet shift into tighter stances, keeping her upper body relaxed as ducks and dodges her way through Tsunade’s endless blows. The Hokage is holding back, of course, but from the way cracks spread in the ground when Sakura redirects her punches, it’s clear she isn’t holding back _too_ much. 

Sakura tracks Tsunade’s movements from her shoulder and hands down to her stance, which is standard practice for a sharingan user, but almost unheard of an ordinary genin. It seems like the mandatory anatomy lessons she’d complained about weren’t just for healing, after all. 

At her current level, if they were in the middle of a war, Kakashi would have promoted her to chuunin already. Her explosive growth in such a short amount of time may have been triggered by Sasuke’s deserting and helped by Tsunade, but there’s no denying her potential. Her taijutsu, while not as polished as Lee’s, is still deadly precise, aiming for weak points and spots she can use her own chakra to fell her opponent. 

Then his eyes fall on her hands as she gives ground to Tsunade, and he sharpens his vision. Remembers Kurenai excusing herself from some of their jounin meetings, claiming she had business to take care of. 

_“Good chakra control,”_ he recalls himself saying, and he pushes up his hitai-ate just in time to see Sakura’s genjutsu fall into place. 

It’s an easy enough genjutsu in practice, fitting for a beginner without a full time teacher, but the fact that she’s doing it mid-spar is not standard. She should have her hands full just avoiding Tsunade, not be able to split her concentration between the fight and the underlying genjutsu. 

Sakura keeps cycling through the seals one handed, and he recognizes the way she does it so that Tsunade doesn’t notice, just like how Kurenai used to hide her own. Maybe if the Hokage were in a real fight and not a quick spar against her young student, she would have sensed them in her blind spot, but that isn’t the case, here. 

Kakashi watches Sakura lay the genjutsu on the courtyard, almost unnoticeable with how light it is. Not a hallucinatory genjutsu, then. Wise choice, knowing Tsunade knowledge and experience against those types. He’s not sure what she’s trying to accomplish, if it isn’t to conceal her own movements.

Or rather, he has too many options to choose from, with his limited knowledge of Sakura’s style, until her eyes flick to a particularly cracked part of the yard, and chakra pulses from the spot. 

He doesn’t hear anything, from his place outside of the genjutsu’s range, but it’s clear Tsunade does, from the way she immediately shifts her stance to lash out with a punch. Sakura follows the genjutsu’s effects not even a second later, planting her feet back and raising her arms.

Kakashi winces when Tsunade knocks back Sakura’s half hearted attempt at a block, and smashes her fist into the girl’s gut. She lets out a low groan, falling back on the dusty ground. The sharingan tells him there’s at least two bones broken in her body. 

He’s not surprised when Sakura presses her hands to her stomach, glowing with the healing technique Tsunade favors. It’s far from perfect, too much wasted chakra pouring out of her in her motions, but it gets the job done. She stands up unsteadily within the time limit, although with much less chakra in her reserves. 

It’s clear that she won’t be able to handle Tsunade for much longer, though. Whatever she has planned with her auditory genjutsu has to be used now.

Sakura shunshins to the next spot she has marked, managing to take the brunt of the kick with her arm. He still hears the snap and sees her face scrunching up in agony.

She must have a large tolerance for pain, because she doesn’t even give Tsunade a chance to let her breathe, whipping her right arm in a clear tell with the genjutsu. She must be too drained to try hiding it, but the trick still works, Tsunade turning away from her for a moment. 

Sakura leaps off the ground with a grunt, one arm hanging uselessly behind her as she draws the meager amount of chakra she has left into her fist. Her hair curls around her face, blown back momentarily by the force of the punch. 

He’s almost disappointed when Tsunade blocks it anyway, but Sakura doesn’t stop moving, jumping back to a more safe distance. She signs the seals for genjutsu again, in plain view, and a hasty, almost wavering illusion falls over the courtyard. The sharingan can see through the genjutsu clearly; there isn't a specific type she's focusing on, which means it is a distraction. Her chest is heaving, teeth clenched with pain when she sends the last pulse of chakra left in her reserves directly behind Tsunade. The Hokage startles, whipping her head around in an attempt to catch the sound before it's gone. Sakura takes advantage of the split second of confusion evident in Tsunade's face, leaping for her arm, then swinging herself up with a move that looks painful even to him. Using the momentum of her jump, she throws her knee forward, and it collides with Tsunade's raised arm.

For a moment, they seem frozen, before Sakura tumbles to the ground and winces, hand flying to her injured arm. He can't make out what she's saying from where he's standing, but it must amuse Tsunade, as the woman nods and pats Sakura’s head with a satisfied smirk.

She smiles and then laughs, unbidden joy and pride in her face. 

Kakashi’s almost sorry to interrupt the moment. 

“Yo,” he says, sliding down and through the mess of cracked dirt and craters. 

“Kakashi,” says Tsunade, drawing back up to her full height. “What are you here for?”

He holds his hands up at Tsunade’s piercing gaze, saying lightly, “Sakura invited me. I was her sensei, after all.”

“Not like you ever taught her anything,” she snorts, and yeah, he deserves that. 

“Nevermind that,” he narrows his eyes, “Sakura, you’re at the very least, chuunin level. I’d say you’re leagues above a lot of shinobi your age. Plus, you have a range of skills that you’re able to use in battle. What do you need to train with?”

Sakura pushes herself to her feet unsteadily, one hand clutching at her ribs and the other still at her side. Definitely broken. 

“I assume you saw the genjutsu,” she gestures. “I’m already getting lessons from Kurenai-san on occasion, so I don’t think you’ll be able to help me there. Taijutsu is Tsunade-sama’s specialty. So- I think it’s just my ninjutsu.”

“That’s sound,” Kakashi nods. “My chakra affinity is lightning, but I’m sure we can work something out.”

“Great!” Sakura smiles. 

A beat passes, then-

“About your arm,”

“Ah!” she gasps. “Tsunade-sama, do you mind? My chakra is practically gone right now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the abrupt ending. ill prob come back and edit this later but for now enjoy!! comment if u wanna see this continue


End file.
